Charles Foster (writer)

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Charles Foster (born 1923) is a Canadian publicist and writer. He was born in Cheshire, England. During World War II he was a pilot with the Royal Air Force. The RAF sent him to a base in Alberta, Canada for flight training and while on leave he visited Hollywood. There, he met Sidney Olcott, a Canadian-born silent film star who introduced him to numerous other ex-patriat Canadian actors in Hollywood including Mary Pickford. After the war, Foster used these contacts to begin a career as a publicist in London and in Hollywood, working for such well-known performers as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Burton, Boris Karloff, Errol Flynn and Benny Hill. He ghostwrote Flynn's 1955 memoir My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Foster later became a writer for comedians in the 1960s including Bob Hope and Jack Benny and contributed scripts to a number of 1960s sitcoms including The Beverly Hillbillies.

He returned to Canada in the 1970s where he became a speechwriter for the Canadian Government, and eventually came to Riverview, New Brunswick, where he still resides, to begin as newspaper editor for the Moncton Free Press. In his retirement he delved into his remarkable store of memories to publish two books on Canadians in Hollywood: Stardust and Shadows (about the silent film era), and Once Upon a Time in Paradise (about the period from the late 1920s to the 1950s). He is said to be writing his autobiography.

His most recent book is about a largely forgotten Broadway performer named Donald Brian.